The CCRIF is a risk pooling facility, owned, operated and registered in the Caribbean for Caribbean governments. It is designed to limit the financial impact of catastrophic hurricanes and earthquakes to Caribbean governments by delivering short term liquidity when a policy is triggered.

 It is the world’s first regional fund utilising parametric insurance, giving Caribbean governments the unique opportunity to purchase earthquake and hurricane catastrophe coverage with lowest-possible pricing.

 The objectives of the MOU are to promote the use of catastrophe risk modeling tools, to introduce new products and initiatives to assist Caribbean governments in better understanding and financing catastrophe risk exposures and to share information on real time hazard and impact information.

 CCRIF Chairman Milo Pearson, Chairman said that the CCRIF’s participation in this partnership will enable the governments in the region to “access financial resources in a timely manner to jumpstart their countries’ economic recovery in the aftermath of a major catastrophe disaster”.

 In the past two years, the CCRIF paid out approximately $500,000 each to Dominica and St. Lucia after an earthquake occurred in 2007, and $6.3M to the Turks and Caicos Islands in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike.

 Jeremy Collymore, Coordinator, added that the Memorandum of Understanding strengthens CDERA’s ability to implement the Hyogo Framework for Action that aims to reduce countries’ vulnerability to natural hazards.

 He said: “the MOU represents the launching of a platform to minimise the hemorrhaging of regional assets, particularly in relation to hydrometeorological hazards.”

 Nineteen Caribbean governments will benefit from the MOU: Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Jamaica, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, Trinidad & Tobago and the Turks and Caicos Islands who are current members of both the CCRIF and CDERA, as well as CCRIF members, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, and Haiti and CDERA members the British Virgin Islands, Guyana, and Montserrat.